Villahermosa Travel Guide

The Parque-Museo La Venta in Villahermosa is an open-air archaeological park. In the 1950s, when oil development threatened the Olmec site of La Venta in Tabasco, the poet Carlos Pellicer led the transfer of dozens of stone monuments here, re-set among tropical trees in an arrangement echoing the original. Most arresting are the four colossal heads — over two metres tall and weighing tens of tonnes, with strongly individual faces — the signature remains of Olmec civilisation. The grounds double as a zoo, with jaguars, tapirs and macaws.